The original 1960 group of cosmonauts is shown in a photo from May 1961 at the seaside port of Sochi. The names of many of these men were considered state secrets for more than twenty-five years. Sitting in front from left to right: Pavel Popovich, Viktor Gorbatko, Yevgeniy Khrunov, Yuri Gagarin, Chief Designer Sergey Korolev, his wife Nina Koroleva with Popovich's daughter Natasha, Cosmonaut Training Center Director Yevgeniy Karpov, parachute trainer Nikolay Nikitin, and physician Yevgeniy Fedorov. Standing the second row from left to right: Aleksey Leonov, Andrian Nikolayev, Mars Rafikov, Dmitriy Zaykin, Boris Volynov, German Titov, Grigoriy Nelyubov, Valeriy Bykovskiy, and Georgiy Shonin. In the back from left to right: Valentin Filatyev, Ivan Anikeyev, and Pavel Belyayeu

Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and Gagarin wave to cheering Cubans during celebrations on the eighth anniversary of Castro's revolutionary movement. Gagarin, addressing the crowd through an interpreter, said that "someday a Cuban will fly through space"

Gagarin exchanges smiles with onlooking Parisians as he arrives in Paris on 27 September 1963. Gagarin attended the International Astronautical Congress at UNESCO Headquarters, and predicted that Russia would land a man on the moon before the United States